Employed Mothers and Their Children by Jacqueline V. Lerner Nancy L. Galambos

Author:Jacqueline V. Lerner, Nancy L. Galambos [Jacqueline V. Lerner, Nancy L. Galambos]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317943464
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2021-04-14T00:00:00+00:00

Support for Self-Care Children

Many families live in areas where ideal, high quality after-school care is unavailable or is too costly. In addition, many families decide that children are mature enough to look after themselves after school and indeed would be happier doing so than attending an organized program. As a result, 2.1 million children in the United States are in self-care for some period of time every week. What resources can families turn to as they consider and adapt to self-care? What help is available for self-care children and their parents?

Project Home Safe is a national demonstration and advocacy program for self-care children and their families. Project Home Safe maintains an extensive resource center and a toll-free information line, sponsors research related to children in self-care, trains professionals in the development of community resources for self-care children, and advocates the establishment and implementation of standards for school-age child care. Remarkably comprehensive bibliographies of self-care guides for children and adults, activity and hobby ideas, books on self-care safety, fiction about kids in self-care, and audio-visual resources are available from the Project Home Safe address listed in the annotated bibliography.

A growing number of helpful books are available for both self-care children and their parents. These publications generally combine a positive attitude about self-care with practical suggestions for making the self-care experience fun, safe, and productive. These guides vary in the topics covered, target ages, and reading levels. A selection of these books is reviewed in the annotated references. Swan and Houston’s (1986) book, Alone After School: A self-care guide for latchkey children, deserves a special recommendation for parents considering and preparing their children for self-care. This book presents one of the most comprehensive and thought-provoking discussions of all aspects of the self-care situation. The authors emphasize the active role played by parents and children in carefully designing a tailor-made “self-care plan” that best serves the family’s particular needs.

A practical source of support for self-care children is a phone line that children at home alone can call for advice, help, or companionship. In 1982 a pioneer of these innovative call-in “hotlines” or “warmlines,” PhoneFriend, was established in State College, PA (Guerney & Moore, 1983); today more than 250 such phone lines have been established in the United States. Staffed by volunteers trained in empathic listening, these centers aim to enhance children’s coping abilities and to provide reassurance and support to self-care children. PhoneFriend has now started a networking project to aid other communities in establishing call-in phone services (see annotated bibliography). Other networks of phone lines for children at home alone in the United States are operated by Kidsline and Contact Teleministries. In Canada, a national, 24-hour toll-free Kids Help Phone for children has recently been established (see annotated bibliography).

In the many areas where formal programs or call-in lines are not available, some families have been able to form links with individuals in the community (e.g., grandparents, adults who are housebound) who are willing to be available to children by phone when they arrive home from school.

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